Aug. 8th, 2019 01:00 pm
FIC: Amuse-Bouche [Nixon/Winters]
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thrillingdetectivetalesAMUSE-BOUCHE
Lewis Nixon/Dick Winters
Author's Note: So,kunstarschloch and I were talking about swapping ficbits the other day but since I recently shared a snippet from pretty much every long-form story I’m working on I wrote her something new.
Featuring a Lew with a little extra meat on his bones, a Dick who absolutely doesn’t mind, and Blanche, who sets the whole thing off in the first place. This is really seriously not beta-read and may be drastically out of character but I hope you like it anyway!
You can also read this bad boy over on AO3.
It was Blanche who brought it to his attention, darting in to pinch gently at Lew’s hip with her sleekly manicured, cherry red fingernails and teasing sweetly, “Going a little soft in your old age, aren’t you, big brother?”
They were gathered around a table in the lamplit glamor of the Waldorf Astoria, honoring the opening of the much-famed Empire Room for the winter social season and likewise celebrating Lew’s birthday, which had been on Monday. Dick was sat beside him, recently released from his unexpected conscription as a training officer at Fort Dix. He had reclined back from his half-eaten dinner and appeared entirely captivated by the orchestra, foot tapping delightedly under the table in an endearingly off-beat tattoo. Blanche had taken the seat opposite, glamorous as always in a supple velvet number that left very little of her figure to the imagination despite the ostentatious fur stole draped voluminously across her shoulders. Lew glanced down at himself—white shirt, dark tie, blue jacket in a blended wool that shone faintly in the low glow of the candles on the table with a vest to match. It wasn’t the dandiest Lew had ever been, but neither was the outfit worthy of any particular derision.
“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning.
Blanche hummed into her glass, taking a slow, considering sip of bubbling Crémant de Limoux, and tilted the crystalline flute absently back and forth.
“It’s the curse of the gourmand, darling,” she explained over the sudden swell of strings, lifting one shoulder in a lazy, feline shrug. “Every man who avails himself so thoroughly of the world’s great pleasures is destined to show the evidence of his passions, eventually. There’s no shame in it.”
Lew set his fork down on the edge of his plate—nearly empty, but for a couple of lingering pommes soufflée and one lonely tournedo swimming in truffle sauce—and lifted his napkin from the table, ducking his head and dabbing at his mouth as he gave himself another surreptitious once-over. Now that he was looking for it, he supposed he could admit that the fastenings on his vest were pulled slightly more taut than the especially attentive clotheshorse might allow, and his belt was cinched a little on the tight side of comfortable. It reminded him suddenly and bitterly of his father. The realization twisted sour in Lew’s gut, curdling the edges of his good humor like spoiled milk. He tugged at the lapels of his jacket with one hand and hunched forward with a scowl, as though further ruining the already questionable slope of his posture might help.
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Blanche sighed immediately, rolling her eyes across the table.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lew replied.
Blanche arched an elegant, disbelieving eyebrow and then leaned over in her gracefully liquid way until her cheek was nearly pressed against Dick’s shoulder.
“Major?” she intoned, and Dick looked politely down at her, smirking and clapping along with the rest of the room while the band swung their tune merrily to its end. Blanche smiled at him with a warm amusement that suggested she and Dick were in on some grand joke together and confessed theatrically, “I’m afraid I’ve bruised my brother’s ego.”
“Oh?” Dick asked, and cut a curious glance over at Lew. His eyes gleamed even in the shaded ambiance, sparkling like cut gems over the fond tilt of his mouth. Lew shifted in his seat and rolled his eyes, leaning forward to rest his chin in one hand and drumming the fingers of the other against the tabletop in a brisk burst.
“Most grievously,” Blanche nodded, pursing her red mouth into a mournful frown. “Though entirely by accident, you understand?”
“Of course,” Dick agreed. He was still looking keenly at Lew, who was trying very hard not to notice just how fine a figure Dick cut in his slim, dove gray suit—a concession to Lew’s posh sensibilities he had agreed to on this most auspicious occasion of Lew’s thirty-fourth. As if it weren’t gift enough to have Dick permanently freed from his military tenure and back by Lew’s side just in time to celebrate.
Turning a blind eye to Dick’s inherent appeal proved demonstrably difficult—aside from his neatly parted copper hair and glittering blue gaze, Dick had maintained his soldier’s physique tremendously well. Even before he had been pressed back into service, Dick had made a habit of being up at the crack of dawn to chase the sunrise through the twilit streets. His steadfastness in this matter was apparent all throughout his lean frame, in the proud breadth of his shoulders and the trim taper of his hips.
A prickling sheen of heat flooded Lew’s face when the slick pink point of Dick’s tongue darted out, just briefly, to wet his lips. Lew reached for the glass of whiskey he’d been nursing all evening and drained the remainder in one fell swallow while Dick’s smirk sprawled into a soft, gratified grin.
“In light of such a terrible crime, I’m afraid I must beg your assistance.” Blanche batted her long eyelashes and curved her pale fingers imploringly over Dick’s elbow.
“With?”
“Why, an apology of course!” Blanche cried, pressing her free hand to her breast. She leaned into Dick’s side, close and familiar, and instructed in a sultry purr only barely loud enough for Lew to hear, “Tell my brother how handsome you find him, won’t you? It’s the only balm that will soothe the sting.”
“You think so?” Dick replied absently, that knowing blue gaze pinned firmly to Lew’s face, watching with unabashed delight while Lew went positively aflame out to the tips of his ears. Lew swallowed, overcome by a monstrous thirst, and twisted away from the sweet curl of Dick’s grin to flag down one of the black-coated waitstaff and loudly demand a double measure of whiskey, posthaste.
“I’m certain of it,” Blanche assured with easy authority, ignoring Lew’s dramatics. She gave Dick’s forearm a condescending little pat and then straightened up in her seat. “Quickly now,” she advised, raising both eyebrows expectantly over her sly smirk, “or he’ll be afloat up to his eyeballs before either of us can get a word in edgewise.”
Dick hummed thoughtfully in response to Blanche’s claim but blessedly didn’t say a thing. He lounged back in his seat, a lazier sprawl than he would usually succumb to anywhere but in the privacy of their own living room, and stretched his legs out until his ankles were knocking against Lew’s under the table. Lew cut him a pointed look but Dick just raised his eyebrows, smiling pleasantly while Lew received his drink and fished a coin out of his pocket to tip the young man who’d delivered it, seemingly content to sit there and bask on the periphery of the high society goings-on while the music spun back to life.
Dick watched Lew sip his way through a swinging brass tune and a surprisingly spritely orchestral rag and then heaved a shallow sigh and pushed himself to his feet. Lew looked up at him and he tucked his hands into his trouser pockets, inviting benignly, “I’m going to get some air. Come with me?”
“Subtle,” Lew snorted. Dick shrugged, unbothered, and started toward the double doors on the far side of the hall with his usual loping stride. Lew watched him go for a long second and then swore under his breath, gulping down a biting mouthful of whiskey and glowering across the table at his sister’s amused smirk even as he hurried off in Dick’s wake.
Lew was faintly winded by the time he made it out onto the balcony, which only served to stoke the embers of shame eating hotly into the pit of his stomach. He silently cursed Blanche for puncturing his vanity with all the lethal precision of an expert marksman and shuffled to where Dick was waiting for him on the little alcoved side of the patio with his elbows propped atop the railing and his face tilted up toward the stars. The night was crisp and clear, the moon hanging huge and white and full against the black silk backdrop of the open sky. It might have been a very romantic scene except that Dick had dragged him out here to cater to Lew’s smarting ego, which only made Lew feel worse about the entire ordeal.
“My sister doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” he offered preemptively, strolling up so near to Dick that their elbows brushed, shoulders pressing together. It was closer than he probably ought to risk in such a public venue, but the evening was cold enough that the handful of folks puffing after dinner cigarettes likely wouldn’t think anything of it, or wouldn’t linger to impart their judgment even if they did.
“Doesn’t she?” Dick replied, quirking an eyebrow and cutting that familiar, fond smirk over at Lew, who was busily patting himself down in search of his own smokes. Dick watched the spectacle for a few long seconds before he rolled his eyes and took pity on Lew’s predicament, offering with a huff, “They’re in your jacket. Inside pocket.”
“Thanks,” Lew said, and dug a cigarette free with fingers that were already chapping red at the knuckles in the dry chill. He ducked his head to his lighter and Dick obligingly turned a shoulder without Lew even having to ask, settling in as a bulwark against the small spouts of wind that occasionally gusted through this high over the city, filching the flames off the ends of exposed matches and slipping their icy fingers over the upturned collar of every ill-suited dinner jacket.
“I mean it,” Lew said intently, after the first glorious mouthful of tobacco smoke had settled stinging into his lungs. “She’s just looking to gas herself up a little at my expense. It’s an old Nixon birthday tradition.”
“You don’t say,” Dick drawled. He was turned mostly toward Nix by now, one elbow still lingering on the railing with his back to the rest of the balcony, the restaurant, and the whole twinkling skyline.
“Sure I do,” Lew said, more sharply than was probably necessary given the obvious affection that had soaked through Dick’s good humor. “But I can repeat it if your ears are giving you trouble. I know how reveille can leave a man ringing for months.”
Dick snorted, shaking his head and glancing down at his feet while he toed at the intricately scalloped tile with one of his mirror-polished shoes.
“She’s right about one thing,” he allowed, almost shyly, looking up at Lew through those long russet lashes. Lew groaned and pushed off the handrail, taking a few sloppy, scuffing steps away before he turned around and ambled back, shaking his head.
“Don’t,” he warned. Dick frowned at him and touched his fingers to Lew’s elbow, coaxing him to take another slow, improprietous step into Dick’s space. Lew went after a stubborn second’s hesitation, head floating pleasantly between the weather and the whiskey and the warmth of Dick’s hand on him, though his temper still buzzed under his skin.
“I’m serious, Dick,” he grumbled sorely, sucking a harsh mouthful of smoke off his cigarette and exhaling it through his nose. “I’m not your best girl. I don’t need you to pet my hair and tell me I’m pretty.”
“Who said anything about pretty?” Dick asked. Lew rolled his eyes.
“You oughta cart that act down to the Village.”
“You think?”
“Sure,” Lew snapped. “You could be the next Bud Abbott, with jokes like that.”
“Well, what does that make you?” Dick asked, reaching out to fuss briefly with Lew’s lapel. It was bolder than he usually cared to be and it made Lew suspicious at the same time that it set his heartbeat pounding under his skin.
“Same thing I always am, I guess,” Lew shrugged. “The fool to your straight man. Hell, I’ve already got the name.”
“Lew - ” Dick started, frowning, and Lew cut him off with a quick, sharp shake of his head.
“I mean it, Dick,” he sighed, doing his best to summon a grin. By the state of Dick’s expression, it was not a particularly convincing effort. “I’m alright, really.”
“What did she say to you anyway?”
“Oh, nothing.” Lew shifted his weight back onto his heels, leaning his head back to peer up into the star-dappled sprawl overhead. He tucked one hand into his pocket and gestured with his half-smoked cigarette in the general direction of his own abdomen. “Might’ve implied that I ought to let my trousers out a bit.”
Dick made a faint sound of affront and Lew lifted one shoulder in an affectedly unruffled shrug, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to look Dick in the eye.
“She has a point,” he acknowledged reluctantly, reaching up to scratch at his temple with his thumb, cigarette carving a gauzy gray line through the air as he moved. “I’ve been eating well these last few years.”
“So have I,” Dick protested, and appeared so honestly cussed by this implication when Lew finally mustered the courage to look at him that Lew had to bite down on a smile.
“Please,” he huffed, jerking his chin toward the doorway. “You left half your dinner back there.”
“I’ll make up for it when they bring out the cake,” Dick predicted gravely, and this time Lew laughed. He took a final drag off his cigarette and flicked the butt over the side of the balcony, grinning when Dick wrinkled his nose in disapproval.
“Look, it’s fine, I swear,” he sighed, hunching his shoulders against the cold and glancing down to where his feet were slotted in with Dick’s like the teeth of a zipper. They ought to head back inside soon or Lew was going to do something foolish. “I’ll take up boxing or something.”
“Boxing?” Dick echoed skeptically.
“Yale has a proud pugilistic tradition, I’ll have you know,” Lew said. He patted his gut. “A good brawl or two and I’ll trim down in no time.” Dick ignored him, brow knit and mouth pursed in thought for a long, quiet moment.
When he finally spoke, his tone was teetering on a knife-edge between hopeful and wounded, blue eyes soft and bright. “You know that I like the way you look, right?”
“Dick - ” Lew sighed, ready to reiterate that he didn’t need to be pandered to or coddled. His mouth snapped shut when Dick reached out and slipped a hand into his jacket, curling his palm tenderly over Lew’s ribs and running it all the way down Lew’s flank to rest possessively over the curve of his hip. Liquid heat flared up Lew’s spine at the attention, face flooding so hot he was amazed it wasn’t steaming as he breathed, “Dick?”
“Lewis,” Dick said, tone brittle and almost desperate, “I’ll take you however I can get you and be glad to have you. If that’s half-starved and exhausted in the Ardennes, then so be it, but if I have a choice in the matter?”
He dragged his thumb over Lew’s hip, toward the waistband of his trousers, and Lew sucked a breath through his teeth. He darted a glance over Dick’s shoulder—most of the other smokers had gone back inside and Lew didn’t envision that the somber-faced brunette staring wistfully out into the night was going to give them any trouble, but it paid to be cautious and since Dick had apparently taken momentary leave of his senses that responsibility now fell to Lew.
“Yeah?” he pressed, voice hoarse, when he had determined that they were alone, or close enough to it to count.
“Well,” Dick replied lowly, sounding uncharacteristically meek. He licked his lips and gave Lew’s hip a squeeze. “If I have a choice, then I prefer you like this.”
“Like what?” Lew asked, trying to force a joke to alleviate the thick, throbbing tension that had pulsed into existence the moment that Dick stepped in close enough to kiss. “Paunchy and out of shape?”
“Happy,” Dick corrected quietly. He pressed his mouth into a thin line, brow dimpled with concern. “You are, aren’t you? Happy?”
“Yeah.” Lew didn’t even realize he’d opened his mouth to speak until the word was hanging there in the air between them, strong and certain. He reached up dizzily to cup his palm over Dick’s shoulder, feeling bewildered and vaguely unmoored by the sheer, rollicking force of his joy. “Yeah, Dick. I’m happy.”
Dick nodded, stroking his thumb over Lew’s hip again in a slow, warm arc while his mouth curled into the small, sweet smile he usually reserved for the lazy minutes in the aftermath of their coupling, when he liked to curl into Lew’s side and sweep his sweaty hair off his face while they swapped murmured endearments.
“To hell with it, then,” he said decisively.
And really, Lew thought as he laughed, who was he to disagree with a proclamation like that?
Lewis Nixon/Dick Winters
Author's Note: So,
kunstarschloch and I were talking about swapping ficbits the other day but since I recently shared a snippet from pretty much every long-form story I’m working on I wrote her something new.Featuring a Lew with a little extra meat on his bones, a Dick who absolutely doesn’t mind, and Blanche, who sets the whole thing off in the first place. This is really seriously not beta-read and may be drastically out of character but I hope you like it anyway!
You can also read this bad boy over on AO3.
“It’s the curse of the gourmand, darling,” Blanche explained over the sudden swell of strings, lifting one shoulder in a lazy, feline shrug. “Every man who avails himself so thoroughly of the world’s great pleasures is destined to show the evidence of his passions, eventually. There’s no shame in it.”
Lew set his fork down on the edge of his plate—nearly empty, but for a couple of lingering pommes soufflée and one lonely tournedo swimming in truffle sauce—and lifted his napkin from the table, ducking his head and dabbing at his mouth as he gave himself another surreptitious once-over. Now that he was looking for it, he supposed he could admit that the fastenings on his vest were pulled slightly more taut than the especially attentive clotheshorse might allow, and his belt was cinched a little on the tight side of comfortable.
It was Blanche who brought it to his attention, darting in to pinch gently at Lew’s hip with her sleekly manicured, cherry red fingernails and teasing sweetly, “Going a little soft in your old age, aren’t you, big brother?”
They were gathered around a table in the lamplit glamor of the Waldorf Astoria, honoring the opening of the much-famed Empire Room for the winter social season and likewise celebrating Lew’s birthday, which had been on Monday. Dick was sat beside him, recently released from his unexpected conscription as a training officer at Fort Dix. He had reclined back from his half-eaten dinner and appeared entirely captivated by the orchestra, foot tapping delightedly under the table in an endearingly off-beat tattoo. Blanche had taken the seat opposite, glamorous as always in a supple velvet number that left very little of her figure to the imagination despite the ostentatious fur stole draped voluminously across her shoulders. Lew glanced down at himself—white shirt, dark tie, blue jacket in a blended wool that shone faintly in the low glow of the candles on the table with a vest to match. It wasn’t the dandiest Lew had ever been, but neither was the outfit worthy of any particular derision.
“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning.
Blanche hummed into her glass, taking a slow, considering sip of bubbling Crémant de Limoux, and tilted the crystalline flute absently back and forth.
“It’s the curse of the gourmand, darling,” she explained over the sudden swell of strings, lifting one shoulder in a lazy, feline shrug. “Every man who avails himself so thoroughly of the world’s great pleasures is destined to show the evidence of his passions, eventually. There’s no shame in it.”
Lew set his fork down on the edge of his plate—nearly empty, but for a couple of lingering pommes soufflée and one lonely tournedo swimming in truffle sauce—and lifted his napkin from the table, ducking his head and dabbing at his mouth as he gave himself another surreptitious once-over. Now that he was looking for it, he supposed he could admit that the fastenings on his vest were pulled slightly more taut than the especially attentive clotheshorse might allow, and his belt was cinched a little on the tight side of comfortable. It reminded him suddenly and bitterly of his father. The realization twisted sour in Lew’s gut, curdling the edges of his good humor like spoiled milk. He tugged at the lapels of his jacket with one hand and hunched forward with a scowl, as though further ruining the already questionable slope of his posture might help.
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Blanche sighed immediately, rolling her eyes across the table.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lew replied.
Blanche arched an elegant, disbelieving eyebrow and then leaned over in her gracefully liquid way until her cheek was nearly pressed against Dick’s shoulder.
“Major?” she intoned, and Dick looked politely down at her, smirking and clapping along with the rest of the room while the band swung their tune merrily to its end. Blanche smiled at him with a warm amusement that suggested she and Dick were in on some grand joke together and confessed theatrically, “I’m afraid I’ve bruised my brother’s ego.”
“Oh?” Dick asked, and cut a curious glance over at Lew. His eyes gleamed even in the shaded ambiance, sparkling like cut gems over the fond tilt of his mouth. Lew shifted in his seat and rolled his eyes, leaning forward to rest his chin in one hand and drumming the fingers of the other against the tabletop in a brisk burst.
“Most grievously,” Blanche nodded, pursing her red mouth into a mournful frown. “Though entirely by accident, you understand?”
“Of course,” Dick agreed. He was still looking keenly at Lew, who was trying very hard not to notice just how fine a figure Dick cut in his slim, dove gray suit—a concession to Lew’s posh sensibilities he had agreed to on this most auspicious occasion of Lew’s thirty-fourth. As if it weren’t gift enough to have Dick permanently freed from his military tenure and back by Lew’s side just in time to celebrate.
Turning a blind eye to Dick’s inherent appeal proved demonstrably difficult—aside from his neatly parted copper hair and glittering blue gaze, Dick had maintained his soldier’s physique tremendously well. Even before he had been pressed back into service, Dick had made a habit of being up at the crack of dawn to chase the sunrise through the twilit streets. His steadfastness in this matter was apparent all throughout his lean frame, in the proud breadth of his shoulders and the trim taper of his hips.
A prickling sheen of heat flooded Lew’s face when the slick pink point of Dick’s tongue darted out, just briefly, to wet his lips. Lew reached for the glass of whiskey he’d been nursing all evening and drained the remainder in one fell swallow while Dick’s smirk sprawled into a soft, gratified grin.
“In light of such a terrible crime, I’m afraid I must beg your assistance.” Blanche batted her long eyelashes and curved her pale fingers imploringly over Dick’s elbow.
“With?”
“Why, an apology of course!” Blanche cried, pressing her free hand to her breast. She leaned into Dick’s side, close and familiar, and instructed in a sultry purr only barely loud enough for Lew to hear, “Tell my brother how handsome you find him, won’t you? It’s the only balm that will soothe the sting.”
“You think so?” Dick replied absently, that knowing blue gaze pinned firmly to Lew’s face, watching with unabashed delight while Lew went positively aflame out to the tips of his ears. Lew swallowed, overcome by a monstrous thirst, and twisted away from the sweet curl of Dick’s grin to flag down one of the black-coated waitstaff and loudly demand a double measure of whiskey, posthaste.
“I’m certain of it,” Blanche assured with easy authority, ignoring Lew’s dramatics. She gave Dick’s forearm a condescending little pat and then straightened up in her seat. “Quickly now,” she advised, raising both eyebrows expectantly over her sly smirk, “or he’ll be afloat up to his eyeballs before either of us can get a word in edgewise.”
Dick hummed thoughtfully in response to Blanche’s claim but blessedly didn’t say a thing. He lounged back in his seat, a lazier sprawl than he would usually succumb to anywhere but in the privacy of their own living room, and stretched his legs out until his ankles were knocking against Lew’s under the table. Lew cut him a pointed look but Dick just raised his eyebrows, smiling pleasantly while Lew received his drink and fished a coin out of his pocket to tip the young man who’d delivered it, seemingly content to sit there and bask on the periphery of the high society goings-on while the music spun back to life.
Dick watched Lew sip his way through a swinging brass tune and a surprisingly spritely orchestral rag and then heaved a shallow sigh and pushed himself to his feet. Lew looked up at him and he tucked his hands into his trouser pockets, inviting benignly, “I’m going to get some air. Come with me?”
“Subtle,” Lew snorted. Dick shrugged, unbothered, and started toward the double doors on the far side of the hall with his usual loping stride. Lew watched him go for a long second and then swore under his breath, gulping down a biting mouthful of whiskey and glowering across the table at his sister’s amused smirk even as he hurried off in Dick’s wake.
Lew was faintly winded by the time he made it out onto the balcony, which only served to stoke the embers of shame eating hotly into the pit of his stomach. He silently cursed Blanche for puncturing his vanity with all the lethal precision of an expert marksman and shuffled to where Dick was waiting for him on the little alcoved side of the patio with his elbows propped atop the railing and his face tilted up toward the stars. The night was crisp and clear, the moon hanging huge and white and full against the black silk backdrop of the open sky. It might have been a very romantic scene except that Dick had dragged him out here to cater to Lew’s smarting ego, which only made Lew feel worse about the entire ordeal.
“My sister doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” he offered preemptively, strolling up so near to Dick that their elbows brushed, shoulders pressing together. It was closer than he probably ought to risk in such a public venue, but the evening was cold enough that the handful of folks puffing after dinner cigarettes likely wouldn’t think anything of it, or wouldn’t linger to impart their judgment even if they did.
“Doesn’t she?” Dick replied, quirking an eyebrow and cutting that familiar, fond smirk over at Lew, who was busily patting himself down in search of his own smokes. Dick watched the spectacle for a few long seconds before he rolled his eyes and took pity on Lew’s predicament, offering with a huff, “They’re in your jacket. Inside pocket.”
“Thanks,” Lew said, and dug a cigarette free with fingers that were already chapping red at the knuckles in the dry chill. He ducked his head to his lighter and Dick obligingly turned a shoulder without Lew even having to ask, settling in as a bulwark against the small spouts of wind that occasionally gusted through this high over the city, filching the flames off the ends of exposed matches and slipping their icy fingers over the upturned collar of every ill-suited dinner jacket.
“I mean it,” Lew said intently, after the first glorious mouthful of tobacco smoke had settled stinging into his lungs. “She’s just looking to gas herself up a little at my expense. It’s an old Nixon birthday tradition.”
“You don’t say,” Dick drawled. He was turned mostly toward Nix by now, one elbow still lingering on the railing with his back to the rest of the balcony, the restaurant, and the whole twinkling skyline.
“Sure I do,” Lew said, more sharply than was probably necessary given the obvious affection that had soaked through Dick’s good humor. “But I can repeat it if your ears are giving you trouble. I know how reveille can leave a man ringing for months.”
Dick snorted, shaking his head and glancing down at his feet while he toed at the intricately scalloped tile with one of his mirror-polished shoes.
“She’s right about one thing,” he allowed, almost shyly, looking up at Lew through those long russet lashes. Lew groaned and pushed off the handrail, taking a few sloppy, scuffing steps away before he turned around and ambled back, shaking his head.
“Don’t,” he warned. Dick frowned at him and touched his fingers to Lew’s elbow, coaxing him to take another slow, improprietous step into Dick’s space. Lew went after a stubborn second’s hesitation, head floating pleasantly between the weather and the whiskey and the warmth of Dick’s hand on him, though his temper still buzzed under his skin.
“I’m serious, Dick,” he grumbled sorely, sucking a harsh mouthful of smoke off his cigarette and exhaling it through his nose. “I’m not your best girl. I don’t need you to pet my hair and tell me I’m pretty.”
“Who said anything about pretty?” Dick asked. Lew rolled his eyes.
“You oughta cart that act down to the Village.”
“You think?”
“Sure,” Lew snapped. “You could be the next Bud Abbott, with jokes like that.”
“Well, what does that make you?” Dick asked, reaching out to fuss briefly with Lew’s lapel. It was bolder than he usually cared to be and it made Lew suspicious at the same time that it set his heartbeat pounding under his skin.
“Same thing I always am, I guess,” Lew shrugged. “The fool to your straight man. Hell, I’ve already got the name.”
“Lew - ” Dick started, frowning, and Lew cut him off with a quick, sharp shake of his head.
“I mean it, Dick,” he sighed, doing his best to summon a grin. By the state of Dick’s expression, it was not a particularly convincing effort. “I’m alright, really.”
“What did she say to you anyway?”
“Oh, nothing.” Lew shifted his weight back onto his heels, leaning his head back to peer up into the star-dappled sprawl overhead. He tucked one hand into his pocket and gestured with his half-smoked cigarette in the general direction of his own abdomen. “Might’ve implied that I ought to let my trousers out a bit.”
Dick made a faint sound of affront and Lew lifted one shoulder in an affectedly unruffled shrug, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to look Dick in the eye.
“She has a point,” he acknowledged reluctantly, reaching up to scratch at his temple with his thumb, cigarette carving a gauzy gray line through the air as he moved. “I’ve been eating well these last few years.”
“So have I,” Dick protested, and appeared so honestly cussed by this implication when Lew finally mustered the courage to look at him that Lew had to bite down on a smile.
“Please,” he huffed, jerking his chin toward the doorway. “You left half your dinner back there.”
“I’ll make up for it when they bring out the cake,” Dick predicted gravely, and this time Lew laughed. He took a final drag off his cigarette and flicked the butt over the side of the balcony, grinning when Dick wrinkled his nose in disapproval.
“Look, it’s fine, I swear,” he sighed, hunching his shoulders against the cold and glancing down to where his feet were slotted in with Dick’s like the teeth of a zipper. They ought to head back inside soon or Lew was going to do something foolish. “I’ll take up boxing or something.”
“Boxing?” Dick echoed skeptically.
“Yale has a proud pugilistic tradition, I’ll have you know,” Lew said. He patted his gut. “A good brawl or two and I’ll trim down in no time.” Dick ignored him, brow knit and mouth pursed in thought for a long, quiet moment.
When he finally spoke, his tone was teetering on a knife-edge between hopeful and wounded, blue eyes soft and bright. “You know that I like the way you look, right?”
“Dick - ” Lew sighed, ready to reiterate that he didn’t need to be pandered to or coddled. His mouth snapped shut when Dick reached out and slipped a hand into his jacket, curling his palm tenderly over Lew’s ribs and running it all the way down Lew’s flank to rest possessively over the curve of his hip. Liquid heat flared up Lew’s spine at the attention, face flooding so hot he was amazed it wasn’t steaming as he breathed, “Dick?”
“Lewis,” Dick said, tone brittle and almost desperate, “I’ll take you however I can get you and be glad to have you. If that’s half-starved and exhausted in the Ardennes, then so be it, but if I have a choice in the matter?”
He dragged his thumb over Lew’s hip, toward the waistband of his trousers, and Lew sucked a breath through his teeth. He darted a glance over Dick’s shoulder—most of the other smokers had gone back inside and Lew didn’t envision that the somber-faced brunette staring wistfully out into the night was going to give them any trouble, but it paid to be cautious and since Dick had apparently taken momentary leave of his senses that responsibility now fell to Lew.
“Yeah?” he pressed, voice hoarse, when he had determined that they were alone, or close enough to it to count.
“Well,” Dick replied lowly, sounding uncharacteristically meek. He licked his lips and gave Lew’s hip a squeeze. “If I have a choice, then I prefer you like this.”
“Like what?” Lew asked, trying to force a joke to alleviate the thick, throbbing tension that had pulsed into existence the moment that Dick stepped in close enough to kiss. “Paunchy and out of shape?”
“Happy,” Dick corrected quietly. He pressed his mouth into a thin line, brow dimpled with concern. “You are, aren’t you? Happy?”
“Yeah.” Lew didn’t even realize he’d opened his mouth to speak until the word was hanging there in the air between them, strong and certain. He reached up dizzily to cup his palm over Dick’s shoulder, feeling bewildered and vaguely unmoored by the sheer, rollicking force of his joy. “Yeah, Dick. I’m happy.”
Dick nodded, stroking his thumb over Lew’s hip again in a slow, warm arc while his mouth curled into the small, sweet smile he usually reserved for the lazy minutes in the aftermath of their coupling, when he liked to curl into Lew’s side and sweep his sweaty hair off his face while they swapped murmured endearments.
“To hell with it, then,” he said decisively.
And really, Lew thought as he laughed, who was he to disagree with a proclamation like that?